disappeared.
“I often hear you scream in the middle of the night,” he said. “The way you scream and some of the things you shout make it clear you are reliving what happened the night you were burned.”
“Shit. If I’d known I was being the town crier, I would have gotten my room soundproofed.”
“That’s not the answer.”
“Neither is my being the village idiot.”
“Is it always the same dream?”
“It’s never exactly the same. I keep reliving different moments of our fire walk, but everything is so vivid it’s like I’m back there again. And in every dream I find myself burning up.”
“You feel the heat?”
“I am fucking on fire. That’s how much heat I feel. My mind and body so believe what is happening that there have been times I’ve awakened with blisters on my skin.”
“You are afraid of the fire?”
I reached for my scarred face. “That’s an understatement.”
“Fire isn’t always about destruction, you know. Many famous fire stories are about revelation, rebirth, and even resurrection.”
“The burn victims I know aren’t phoenix stories. None of us rose out of the ashes that way.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m very sure.”
“Fire has often been a messenger. It was out of a burning bush that Moses heard an angel speak. And despite the fire spouting from the bush, it was not consumed.”
“I saw lots of burning bushes. All of them were consumed and I never heard an angel talk to me.”
“Many of our myths are built on fire stories. Prometheus stole fire from the gods so that humans could become like gods.”
“And didn’t he get chained to some rock where he had his liver pecked out by a vulture every day?”
“That’s one version of the myth.”
“He paid quite the price.”
“So did you.”
“I know that. Once was more than enough. I’m tired of burning and burning and burning.”
“Maybe you haven’t allowed yourself to accept everything that happened to you.”
“You’re not going to start talking about how that fire caused part of my soul to escape and now it can’t find its way home, are you?”
“Not if you don’t want me to.”
“I don’t.”
“I’ll talk about fire then, and how you need to make your peace with it. I’ve been asked to put on a program at this year’s Burning Man event. Why don’t you go with me? The atmosphere might be therapeutic for you.”
I had heard of the annual event. Every year, thousands of people gathered at a remote desert spot in Nevada and burned a huge wooden effigy of a man. It sounded about as appealing as an STD.
“Send me a postcard from there, would you?”
“Fire isn’t your enemy. It’s one of the revelatory elements.”
“If that’s the case, then maybe we should go out to your backyard and make a campfire and tell ghost stories.”
“I don’t think tonight’s a good night for that.”
“Damn, I was looking forward to s’mores.”
“Tell me about your fire dream.”
“I already told you: it’s not a dream. It’s a reliving of what happened.”
“And in that reliving have you ever made it to safety?”
I shook my head. “Not yet. It’s always the horror show but never the relief. In every dream the situation feels helpless. Sirius is always dying, and I can’t do anything to prevent that. The only thing I can do is burn to death with him.”
“That must be a horrible feeling.”
I nodded. “I feel responsible for his dying because I’m the one that put him in that position. And my only consolation is that Ellis Haines is going to die with us, but even that is anticlimactic.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“The idea of killing Haines doesn’t make me feel better. I know I have to stop him from hurting anyone else, but for me it’s just one last duty, like shooting a rabid dog. Feel free to call me Atticus Finch.”
“You suffered a trauma,” Seth said, “and the fire still has a grip on you because part of you remained behind in that place.”
“Yeah, I left behind about a pound of flesh.”
“You must accept the flames if you would gain enlightenment. You won’t be able to go forward unless you go back.”
“Thank you, Obi-Wan Kenobi.”
“Instead of shrinking from the fire, use it for the purpose of illumination.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You’re not the one that’s burning up.”
Both of us sat looking in our drinks for a minute. Seth didn’t see the world as I did. He believed as much in the invisible as he did the visible and saw dreams as journeys. I didn’t want to hear about befriending spirits or gaining empowerment through my travels, or at least I didn’t think I did. Still, when he’d spoken about enlightenment, I couldn’t help but dwell on what my fire dreams kept bringing to me.
“Each time that I awaken from the nightmare,” I said, “when I realize that the fire happened in the past and that Sirius and I are now safe, this strange thing happens.”
I stopped talking for a moment, trying to get a handle on how to explain the ineffable.
“I always think of what occurs as being the moment after. It’s the instant when the horror is behind me, and this kind of window opens and I get this clarity. I can’t really describe it any better than that. It’s like getting a glimpse into my world from the heights of Olympus. It almost feels like I’ve suffered in order to be able to see what I otherwise wouldn’t. Sometimes I call it my boon from the gods.”
“What kind of things do you see?”
“Lots of times they are just little things, but they always help me make sense of situations. Sometimes I remember something, and it gives me this insight I didn’t have before, or I’m able to apply it to some situation that’s been puzzling me. Lately the images have been more elaborate, though.”
“And you’ve been experiencing these images and insights with every fire dream?”
I nodded.
“Medicine for your burns. It is your armor for battling the dragon.”
“I’m tired of battling the dragon.”
“Then you must vanquish it.”
“I think you’ve mistaken me for Saint George.”
“All heroes resemble one another and are forced to travel a perilous path.”
“You’ve had too many worms tonight. They’ve gone to your head.”
“The Ojibwa called alcohol ‘firewater.’ It won’t stop the burning.”
I nodded and downed my glass of firewater. Then I thanked Seth for his hospitality, and Sirius and I headed home.
CHAPTER 19:
Usually when I don’t have a fire dream I awaken feeling renewed, but not this time. I awoke with a sense of loss. Lisbet Keane was the first woman that had made me feel alive in years. For a long time I had just been going
